The myth of Classic community is better than Retail community

TLDR for those who’re too lazy to read the whole thread: I’m having fun playing M+ content these days with good people on retail, while I encounter rude people on WOTLK Classic.

I’ve always been the casual type of player. Casual in a sense - I never stepped outside Raid Finder, and it was enough for me to clear Heroic dungeons to see the story in the game. Part of my mentality was the fact that I play World of Warcraft mostly because of the story and I’m not interested in higher difficulties like Mythic and Mythic+, part of my mentality was the fact that I want to treat the game like, what it is, a game, a not a competition with a timer, and also, part of my mentality was due to my perception that Mythic and Mythic+ groups are toxic, especially PUGs, and I should avoid them at all cost.

This was, until I founded my guild Settlers on Lordaeron on Sha’tar. It was advertised on the server as non-toxic, chatty, social guild.
But it didn’t stay social for long. We’re small, but about 4-5 people decided to try Mythic+, because, why not?

This was the moment Mythic+ started to make sense. Here we are - grinding mythic+ up to level10+. We don’t always beat the timers, but sometimes we do. Nobody is mad at the others, nobody blames the others when somebody loses a key. We all enjoy the game, we all gz each others when we get loot.

Of course, because we’re exactly 5 people - a tank, a healer and 3 DPS, the guild is small, frequently not all of us are online. Quite a lot we have to replace with random PUG players and usually there are 3 guildies online. People who join our groups are warned in advance that this is a guild run and nobody blames the other… And they… stay. And they’re nice. One night a random player decided to relog on a higher geared char and help us cleared a +10 dungeon. He didn’t know us. We didn’t know him, yet he stayed, helped us, said goodbye and we didn’t see him again.

Meanwhile, I wanted to level my Ally toon to 80 on WOTLK. I play on Mirage raceway and suddenly I found myself surrounded by intolerant people. I blocked two immediately after my first dungeon, and this NEVER happened during playing retail during the past two years.

First time, I was blamed for rolling Need on an item (cloth, spell power), and I am a WARLOCK - it’s no my fault that I use mostly the same stuff as the priest… And god, this was a leveling The Old Kingdom Dungeon. This stuff doesn’t stay forever and usually gets replaced before hitting max.

Second time, I was blamed for pulling with pet. True, my mistake, and the most idiotic one - I forgot to turn my taunt off. It’s natural, because on Retail taunt gets auto-turned off in a dungeon. But NOBODY, NOBODY really explained what’s wrong and it took me a couple of minutes to see the taunt ability is on auto-mode.

Third time, a tank stayed AFK for about 5-10 minutes and everybody waited for him to get summoned. He finally decided to show up and on the first wipe 3-4 minutes later he left. Something that never happened in my M+ groups.

This is why I ask myself: What happened to the good Classic community? Didn’t the removal of RDF suppose to inspire people to form groups and be nice to each others? Why is my Classic experience way worse than my Retail one?

If the Classic community is dead, I see no reason for Blizzard not to re-introduce RDF and LFR. Just let us clear the dungeons without having to bother with people, and progress on to Cata.

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Answering the TLDR: dont play on megaservers or alliance… problem solved :wink:

Okay, but are you the real Olivier Panis??

Or maybe it’s like there are both good and bad people everywhere? Personaly I met more chatty and nice players in classic than in retail - simply because on retail leveling dungeons and M+ are rushed and there’s no time or need for chit-chat.

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I have a friend that is playing retail and M+ and he is constantly complaining about mouthbreathing monkeys in M+. He is lower geared than most he play with but he does 25-100% more damage than them. Dont seem like Retail community has that many more good players than Classic.

Hm, in 4 months I haven’t encountered stuff you described, I play warlock on Earthshaker and prot pala on mirrage. People seem nice and tolerant, some chat going on as well.

I left retail on week2 when my key went from +12 to +9 in ~10mins of dungeon time, due to leavers who caused wipes themselves. Oh and I got flamed by few people that as a bear I shouldn’t even play in DF (which in the I did).

There are good and bad stories on both sides, just play whichever suits you better :slight_smile: there are no better version if the game, there is just one that suits your expectations better :slight_smile:

The removal of RDF enabled these behaviors it was never about fixing it.

What a shocker, random people can be rude.

You where in a guild group, it’s obviously not going to be toxic, you try in a completely random group and see the difference.

Both sides of the game have toxic players but I encounter more good players in Wrath than I used to in Retail, which I stopped playing.

The real problem is Blizzard not taking toxicity seriously. They make a charter then say it’s voluntary and don’t change anything.

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You’re cherry picking the good bits from retail and only the bad from classic

I find it the other way round
Retail is more toxic than classic

Of course you’re gonna have a better time with retail- you’re in a close knit guild

I’m on a megaserver on Classic and I’ve found it to be the opposite way around. I played DF for a month and the amount of jackasses I encountered was… Actually surprisingly low. But it was still higher than my last 3 years of Classic.

…That said, I have encountered 3 wastes of space over on Classic-era, but when you’re playing ‘Hardcore’ mode everybody tends to play every-man-for-himself.

The worst community though from my personal experience is without doubt the pirate server community. Never again.

The classic community is the worst community i ever seen.
Since 2019 they are talking like if they are better than retail but always trash talking and selfish, hypocrite, egoist.

And when they don’t have any counter argument, they insult you, judge you or just ignore your post.

Now i don’t wast my time with them, /ignore and gg.

I found a picture of Djansoul searching his brain for things to say.

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A warlock in my guild last week accidentally pulled Hodir 3x with his pet while attempting to Doom the frozen NPCs, just Warlock things. As for the Classic vs Retail community, I mean it’s by and large the same community, some who stopped playing Retail to go to Classic, some who play both.

I don’t think the community of WoW is separated much by game version, maybe in the first week of original Classic when everyone was on the same footing.

Well, you are the toxic one. So gj.

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Like others I assume it is just your luck.

Typical suggestion for both versions is to join a guild. So maybe that’s where it starts. Most nasties are also aware that guild runs can report them, so they behave - power is on your side.

Babyrage about a cloth as healer shouldn’t happen, unless of course said player has dual spec. It takes many runs to gain a level, so it’s not a tragedy to lose. Although some people are unlucky and can get triggered. I am neurotic about BoE items myself, nobody needs them, period.

I don’t know the attitude of WLK players now, my last cycle was about two months ago. There is a mix of leasurely people who are really friendly, and others who start raging if things aren’t going their way. Some people rush but some of those are truly friendly.

I’d say hit me up but I’ll probably just finish some more retail zones before sub expires. What’s your level anyway? My WLK team is 73.

Yeah. He tested the limits of my patience around 4 months ago.

Call me whatever you want; but you can’t say my analysis is wrong.

Yep, most experience ive got with h+ is negative. No one hardly ever speaks exept for the usual “go?” And thats the soscial experience wirhout RDF…

Ppl said RDF ruined the soscial experiene, i dont think so.
Instead of theusual “hi, wanna do hc?” You get “gs?”

When you queue for 8 raids thats not how you start a convo

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Exactly, i already explained why RDF doesn’t kill the social in 2023.
And we are suffering the consequences of the illusion classic players because they base their judgements on outdated experience and arguments instead of the current reality.

I just checked out retail/Dragonflight for the first time since WOD (which I barely played) & TBH I’m really enjoying it. I’m still leveling at the moment, but it feels like it’s got a lot of depth to it now and actually feels like I’m playing a proper RPG again. As someone who enjoys solo content, as well as group content, it feels like I’ve got a ton of options in retail to keep me occupied.

I’ll be the first to admit that I definitely had rose tinted glasses about WOTLK. There’s just too many negative things about it to actually make it an enjoyable experience for me. PvP is absolute trash, arena is a joke, buffed loot making certain classes insanely strong, the sickening amount of bots, GDKP, min/max mentality, lack of content outside raiding, game breaking bugs. The list goes on.

Community wise I really don’t think the classic community is anything special these days. Back in original classic it still had that private server vibe, but towards the end it started changing and has gotten progressively worse through each expansion. It’s mostly just a selfish community that don’t give a damn about anyone but themselves. Perfect example is like 80% of the people that do VOA 25 and won’t even spare 5 mins to do the old boss & just HS, even if it’s a group formed to do both bosses.

Blizzard have also ruined it and blatantly allowed certain things to go on that have ultimately destroyed what could have been a really good thing going on for years.

Personally I’m pretty much done with wrath, but I’ll probably do my 10-20 arena games per week just incase I get the inclination to play some PvP every now and again.

This post is not about content but about the people who play it, well done for missing the point.

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